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Transportation Planning with Floods

A major problem associated with providing supplies after a disaster is that many roads become impassible or passable at a highly reduced speed. There is a little research that specifically addresses the infrastructure damage resulting from the disaster in terms of how it impacts these delivery decisions. With flooding, many roads may not be traversable, and it is usually unknown right after a disaster how many roads are flooded. The research team is interested in using information about floods specifically, in combination with information about the logistics network, to make predictions about what roads are traversable, are not traversable, or traversable at a reduced speed. The team would take these predictions to recommend routing options for vehicles to make deliveries in affected zones. These routing options would be the fastest options to the destination that offer a guaranteed service level, or likelihood of being able to reach the destination. The team also wants to use this information to guide where emergency facilities should be located to be widely accessible.